Grave Sight

Written by: Charlaine Harris, Denis Medri, William Harms
Pages: 64

Acclaimed New York Times Bestselling author Charlaine Harris, the writer of the Sookie Stackhouse series, has joined the Dynamite Entertainment family with the first book of her hit Harper Connelly series, Grave Sight. 
For the past five years, readers have been thrilled by the Harper Connelly series which follows a woman who has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. She can sense the final location of a person who’s passed, and share their very last moment. The way Harper sees it, she’s providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living – but she’s used to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. Traveling with her step-brother, Tolliver, as manager and sometime-bodyguard, she’s become an expert at getting in, getting paid, and getting out fast. Because for the living it’s always urgent – even if the dead can wait forever.
At the age of 15, Harper Connelly was struck by lightning, an event that gave her the ability to find the dead and see how they died. Since then, Harper’s scratched out a living selling her services to anyone with a checkbook. It’s not the best life, but it beats the alternative – at least until Harper and her brother Tolliver roll into Sarne, Arkansas and find themselves embroiled in a murder mystery!

Hitting up my local Borders to see how the “Closing Shop” sales looked, I stumbled across this graphic novel. I’ll tell you, I didn’t know they even made this into a graphic novel. And I also didn’t find it. Sir Megabyte found it. He knew I liked Charlaine Harris so he pulled it. Kudos to him!

Of Charlaine’s books, I’ve only read the Sookie Stackhouse books. I have both the Harper series and the Aurora series in my stacks to read, but with 271 books (and growing) on my list? It’s hard to get to everything. So they just sit there, collecting dust.

I leafed through this short graphic novel and thought the artwork looked top-notch. It is a full colour graphic, which I happen to love. Since it only had 64 pages, I figured I might as well give it a spin. It would at least tell me if I even liked the premise of the series enough to keep the books on my TBR, right?

So I read the book. After about the first page or so, forget it. Hook, line, and sinker. Charlaine nabbed me again. She must sit there wondering how to best entice me to purchase her books. I’m pretty sure she’s out to get me.

Yes, the Harper books will now move to a much higher priority in my stacks. All because of this graphic novel.

What really stinks? This graphic novel should be the first novel’s story. However, there is a “Part 2” graphic novel. And the bookstore did not have it. So I’m left wondering “whodunit”! AUGH! On the bright note, it means that when I sit down to read “Grave Sight”, I won’t already know the WHOLE story!

So, I guess after I finish the Kitty books (they are the next series from my stacks), I will most likely move to these. So much for my other plans. (Yeah, like I had a plan.)

Charlaine Harris rocks my bookworm socks. Lightening-struck-dead-seeing Harper has me itching to read more about her.

Moral of the story: beware of graphic novels!

–Lady O